September Hive 4 Tutorial

Hi everyone!  Welcome to September!

I hope that everyone is having as much fun with this Bee as I am.  Never having participated, this has been a wonderful experience!

When I first learned that I would get to participate, I immediately began racking my brain to figure out what I would like to request for a block.  I stumbled on a tutorial for Reverse Appliqué Quilting and knew that would be a fun technique to try.  If you Google "reverse appliqué quilting," you will find lots of cool pictures and examples of this technique.

My mom (one of my favorite people) asked me to make her a lap quilt and I knew exactly what to do!  Her favorite flowers are daisies (stemming from the movie "You've Got Mail") and I'm so excited for this block!

Fabric:
1 10 1/2" square of dark blue
1 5" square of white (or patchwork of white)
1 2" square of yellow (anything bright)

Here are some of the fabrics I pulled for the main dark blue:

Referencing the email that I sent everyone, you will need to print a copy of the flower.  To begin, decide where you want to place the flower.  I do not care where on the square it is, as long as it is NOT in the center of the square.  I'm going for a little modern mixed in with my flowers. :)  

Turn the blue square right side down, then place the white square right side down on the blue in the area you wish to put the flower.  

Lay the flower template over the white so there will be white surrounding the flower completely, then stitch around the outline of the flower (just like in paper piecing).  I suggest decreasing your stitch length to 1.5 (that worked the best for me) and going slowly around all the curves.  If there are little mistakes, it's no big deal.  

Once you've gone around the entire outside of the flower and done the interior circle (the bold sections), this is what the right side of the fabric will look like:

Back to the back, this is what it should look like:

At this point, go ahead and pull all the paper away from the back (this is the most time intensive, frustrating part but it won't last too long!).  Once you've done that, center the yellow square around the middle circle, then turn over and stitch around the circle from the front - go as close to the old stitches as possible.

Trim both the white and yellow to remove as much of the excess as you can while maintaining a 1/4" around all stitch lines.  Iron down the extra.

Now for the fun part!  From the front side, use a seam ripper to make a small incision in each petal and the center, then use scissors to cut inside all the sewn lines.  Don't worry about getting right next to the stitch lines - I'm looking for a little hazy in the edges.

Once finished, you will have the reverse appliqué!

**Note, I only used one square to try out two different sizes.  I am asking for only ONE flower on each dark blue square.

I'm so excited to see what everybody does!

My question to everyone is:  what keeps you quilting?  The first few quilts are always exciting, but I'm curious what drives everyone.  Why do you do what you do?  My answer is fairly simple - it keeps me out of trouble!  I like working with my hands (remodeling my apartment, building things, making quilts) and also enjoy getting to exercise my creative side this way.